Literary Term - Chapter Ten: Motif

Throughout the whole novel, Vonnegut uses the phrase "so it goes." "He was arrested for plundering. He was tried and shot. So it goes." That is one of the many instances where "so it goes" is used. This phrase is a motif. A Motif is a recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work, unifying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to a theme. This phrase tends to come after the information that a death has occurred. Vonnegut uses this phrase to appeal to the Tralfamadorians' idea that people are still alive in the past, even when they are seemingly dead in one moment.